The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is asking hospitals and electronic health record vendors for advice on how hospitals can use EHRs to electronically submit required reports measuring the quality of clinical services.

In a request for information filed Friday in the Federal Register, CMS says it wants hospitals to be able to use the same certified EHR technology now required for reporting under the EHR incentive program to automatically report patient-level data under its Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting program.

The information is to be reported by hospitals for calendar year 2014 using the Quality Reporting Document Architecture category 1, CMS notes.

CMS says its goals include streamlining quality reporting, reducing the administrative burden on hospitals and developing a single set of electronic specifications for clinical quality measures adopted under multiple quality reporting programs.

Among questions CMS asks:

How well are EHR-based reporting and hospital quality reporting programs aligned?

If hospitals and vendors foresee problems meeting criteria for reporting clinical quality measures electronically for the EHR incentive program, what challenges stand in the way?

John Pulley has written the Health IT Update blog since May 2011. Prior to becoming a regular contributor to Nextgov, he covered technology for Federal Computer Week and Government Health IT magazines. He has written about government for Federal Times and Air Force Times, as well. Pulley has worked in journalism for more than 20 years. He began his career covering local government for regional newspapers. In addition, he served as a writer and senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education for seven years. In 2006, he founded The Pulley Group, an editorial services agency.

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